Aug. 18, 2006

Dave Wannstedt

Training Camp Day 11

August 18, 2006

On Saturday's scrimmage:

Every day we've been trying to pick a different phase to emphasize - coming off the goal line, going in, short yardage, two minutes, red zone. Tomorrow in the scrimmage we're going to work a little overtime situation.

We'll have probably about a 60-play scrimmage tomorrow, and we'll do some kicking...not to keep the pressure, but to give our kickers as realistic a look as we possibly can. We'll probably end up with about 80 plays total with everything that we do. We'll try to get everybody in tomorrow. We'll try to get everybody a little bit of a look. And then hopefully come closer to making some personnel decisions which we're still working through.

On Bill Stull playing in the scrimmage tomorrow:

Billy will play tomorrow. He had a pin taken out [of his non-throwing hand] a couple of days ago. In fact, he had it taken out at eight in the morning and practiced at eleven. He's a tough guy. Obviously at quarterback he'll be protected with the live scrimmage work, but he will participate tomorrow.

On having a timetable on making decisions about redshirts:

I think we wouldn't even think about that until we're into the season. Last year, John Bachman was a great example. We had led ourselves to believe we were going to redshirt him, and then halfway into the season, as we looked at our offensive line not just for last year but for this year, we said we've got to play somebody or we're going to have a tired, inexperienced left side of the line. Those decisions are made as the season goes on.

On players being held out of the scrimmage:

We'll hold Darrelle [Revis] tomorrow. Mike Phillilps twisted his ankle a little bit yesterday. It's nothing serious, but we'll probably hold him too. There'll be two or three guys that won't get much tomorrow.

On Nate Byham's progress at tight end:

He's gotten better every day. It's just a situation where we've got a couple of good players there. We've got obviously Steve Buches, and Darrell Strong's having a good camp. We're trying to get a look at everybody. Once we get a little closer to kickoff, we can decide who we're actually going to use. Nate will be involved. He won't be redshirted. That's one guy I can tell you won't be redshirted.

On Aaron Smith's shoulder injury:

It's just unfortunate. I guess he had a problem with it a couple times in high school and played through it. And our doctors just thought if he had it done now, he could make a complete recovery, no problem. If he continued to try to play with it and it came out another time, you're looking at having further damage and possibly jeopardizing a full recovery.

On how Smith's surgery will affect his season:

Yes [it will mean the end of his season]. The discussion will be whether he could start school in January or he could start now.

On splitting reps at the left tackle position:

I think tomorrow will be a good day (to evaluate). Tomorrow will be the second scrimmage we have. And the next one we have, we'll probably be looking for a little bit more timing and playing together. Tomorrow it will be more of an evaluation one. They're both [Jeff Otah and John Bachman] doing a good job. We're going to need them both.